Practicing Organization Development, 5th Edition

CHAPTER TWENTYSustainability and Transformation

Chris Laszlo

Since the fouth edition of Practicing Organization Development, the dual challenges of sustainability and transformation have come into sharper focus as climate change, income inequality, and other social and global trends have continued to worsen (World Economic Forum 2023). Sustainability initiatives that once passed as transformational are now seen as insufficient or failing to contribute to building a better world (Waddock 2023). The need to distinguish between doing less harm, incremental positive impact, and systemwide transformation—and to undertake all three—has become a priority (Laszlo et al. 2024). Organizations that fail to distinguish between these three impacts may be seen as lacking transparency. At worst, they could be accused of misleading the public’s sense of progress on sustainability trends that are increasingly heading in the wrong direction.

OD professionals are being asked to ensure organizational effectiveness within a larger context of interrelated global crises. This chapter examines the competencies required to enable sustainability initiatives at the scale of the whole.

SUSTAINABILITY TRENDS ARE WORSENING

Beyond climate change, scientists at the Stockholm Resilience Center are finding that humanity has now exceeded the planetary boundaries for species extinctions (biosphere integrity), chemical pollution (novel entities including plastics), phosphorus cycle disruption and nitrogen fixation ...